180.366 - 2016 project and the French Foreign Legion

every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates

the French Foreign Legion

once upon a time the French Foreign Legion was like dragons and fairy princesses and mermaids.  it existed in books and stories and movies and Time magazine.  it never occurred to me that it was real people, like the Marines.  it never occurred to me that it existed from day to day, like a Chevrolet did.  or that you could meet a person in the French Foreign Legion like you could someone in the Navy or in the Air Force.  no, people in the French Foreign Legion existed long enough to carouse doomedly, then gather in a fort and die heroically.  I never asked questions about them any more than I did about dragons.  and then came Dien Bien Phu.  the Vietnamese under General Giap trapped the French Foreign Legion on the top of a hill and just pounded them with artillery for days and days, about two months.  well, it didn't happen the way I remember.  alas.  nope, Dien Bien Phu is a valley surrounded by mountains with plenty of caves in them.  The French built an airstrip in Dien Bien Phu and surrounded it by the French Foreign Legion - at least in my imagination-history.  the Vietnamese took over the mountainsides and put their heavy artillery in the caves, then just pounded the hell out of the French Foreign Legion.  in days they made the airstrip unusable except for supply drops.  it took two months, but the French Foreign Legion finally surrendered and France gave up trying to hold Vietnam.  never fear!  the United States couldn't stand the idea of little brown men defeating big white invaders, so it took on the war to keep the little brown men in their place.  and twenty years later, Giap drove them out too.  or at least that's one version.  so who were the French Foreign Legion?  in story and book and movie, they were criminals, failed professionals, unrequited lovers, men who couldn't shave or hold their drink, and who operated more or less without discipline until they were sent into a trap where they became highly disciplined and very professional soldiers willing to fight to the last man for a battle plan that required them to be surrounded and running out of supplies.  Dien Bien Phu was made for them!  in the real world, in which we seldom run into dragons or fairy princesses or mermaids, the French Foreign Legion was created in 1831 as a special branch of the French Army for foreign nationals who wanted to fight in the French military.  you can still join today.  it has French officers, but its troops are from anywhere but France.  according to at least one reporter, they are what the fictioneers describe, except for the part about undisciplined, drunk, and incompetent.  no, the French Foreign Legion insists that they be soldiers, and they are.  and they fight for France anywhere they are deployed.  they did fight at Dien Bien Phu, but they were part of a large army trapped in the valley.  some people say that the French Foreign Legion does the kinds of things the French would be embarrassed to have its Army do, but I know of no official statement of that.  yes, the French Foreign Legion is a perfect group to make into romantic heroes and into dark anti-heroes.  maybe that's what I appreciate about it, or maybe I transfer the feelings from the stories, books, and movies onto the real people.  they did become real people to me after Dien Bien Phu, and they continue to be.